Memories of the 28th Century

Recently, I self-published a book of fourteen short stories (link below), and I have mentioned that to a number of people since then. I have noticed that some people seem to want a summary of the themes and plots before they read the stories, and I was surprised to find that I think that they should read them and make their own judgments regarding the various aspects of the stories, even though I know what they mean and how people should understand them. But I have also read a lot about semiotics and literary interpretation, especially Umberto Eco's work along those lines (see links below), and I developed the understanding within me that readers truly are responsible for their own reading. Even though the author may know why each and every word is there, readers may have different takes on what the words mean.

I find it interesting that my opinion of this matter hasn’t changed, now that I have published literature out there for the whole world to throw darts at. That may be an indication that readers and writers really aren’t enemies; we are allies, and most authors are readers first and foremost.

I also want readers to take the path into and through my writing. As one example, one of those fourteen stories is "Ekwamedha's Child". It is an odd piece about a supernatural being, a Goddess in fact, recruiting a man to kill her child. In addition to being a tale of supernatural horror, there are symbolic meanings for some entities in the story. A few people have read the story before, but none mentioned that interpretation; maybe none ever will. I don't know, yet.

Some of the other stories also have more than one possible interpretation, so I am waiting to see whether readers will have anything interesting to say about my book of stories. I am also wondering if readers might find interpretations that I didn't intend. It is not uncommon for there to be unintended interpretations, and sometimes those ideas are very good. Even the crime stories are open works, allowing interpretation, and Eco was of the opinion that such stories are pointed in a single direction that makes other interpretations impossible or questionable, but he may have been thinking of a different kind of story; he especially liked Nero Wolf stories, and he wrote at least one article about Sherlock Holmes, and those are different from the crime stories that I have written.

I did create a few stories that were aimed at people and current situations that I am aware of. We will have to wait to learn whether the cover was good enough, or if someone will see through to what I was thinking about and recognize the characters, even with the disclaimer. Some of the best characters among the stories were completely dreamed up, but I wonder whether anyone will think that they were based on particular people.

To make it more interesting, one of the stories is about interpretation, and one of the earlier titles of another story was "Misanthropy and Misinterpretation", but I have changed that story significantly since then, so now "Plague In All Your Houses" is more appropriate.

There are people who do not like to interpret, or who are incapable of following inferences. One person I know complained about the indirect characterizations that I made in a story and said that he preferred that the characters be described in detail, rather than showing themselves through dialogue and action; he has Asperger’s Syndrome, and that kind of an attitude is typical of people with Asperger’s. I do not write for such people or with any other mental or developmental problem(s), and I consider indirect characterization to be greatly superior to direct characterization. In the more real world, I find that it is a mistake to believe that people provide more and better information about themselves in their speech and actions than any autobiography could provide.

Interpretation, whether literary or of other things, is an important part of how humans perceive the world and learn from it. Everything tells much of itself and its present condition, and sometimes an interpretation is mistaken. For example, someone who has been so kind as to read some of my stories and give opinions regarding them opined that she would love to meet the person on whom one of my characters was based; unfortunately, that character was a composite character built from several people I have known. My reader may have even seen a bit of herself in that character.

Everything is open to interpretation, and you should not be shy about expressing your opinions regarding your interpretations.



Related works by Umberto Eco
"The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts" (1979).
"The Limits of Interpretation (Advances in Semiotics)" (1990)
"Interpretation and Overinterpretation" (1992) (with R. Rorty, J. Culler, C. Brooke-Rose; Edited by S.Collini)

The Gods Complain and Other Stories, this is that recently self-publishe book.
https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Complain...+gods+complain